From the monthly archives: August 1998

FR. RON ROLHEISER, omi

William Blake once coined a series of pithy aphorisms on desire and frustration. Among them, we find: "Those who restrain desire do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained – and in being restrained it does by degrees become passive until at last it is nothing but the shadow of a desire. . . . Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires."

FR. RON ROLHEISER, omi

A gift is only a gift if given twice. Understood correctly, this is not a conundrum but a key to help us out of an inchoate guilt that afflicts us all. Inside each of us there are guilt feelings. Some of these have a clear root within our lives and are painful reminders of things we have done or left undone.